


Making a Captain

by Pippa



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-19 17:43:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14242494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pippa/pseuds/Pippa
Summary: This is a Star Fleet Academy story with eventual Kirk/McCoy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My take on the Academy is a bit different than the norm. I don't believe 4 years of post secondary education would be sufficient to create warp engineers or linguists for Star Fleet so my Academy is a post graduate program. This is also a result of all the people in the initial bar scene being older than Kirk, not younger.
> 
> Finally, I don't have a beta but could sure use one if someone would like to volunteer. I apologize for any errors the lack of a second reader have let slip in, please forgive me and suggest corrections if you are so moved.

“Straighten up there,” Pike said, walking slowly down the line of cadets. “Try to look like Star Fleet officers even if you can’t act like it.” He stopped in front of the tallest of the cadets and looked up the considerable distance into the man’s face. The guy had to be at least six and half feet tall. He studied the cadet’s rapidly blackening eye for a long moment before moving down the line to the next cadet, shaking his head as he examined each student.

“You people do understand that the mission of Star Fleet is to defend the Federation, right?”

He waited for a moment in silence. “You do know that right? I know you’ve only been at the academy for a year but you must have at least listened to the oath you swore, perhaps attended a few classes, read a little Star Fleet history?” When his remark was again met by silence. He hardened his tone and stopped his pacing. “Someone had better answer me. Do You Know The Purpose of Star Fleet?”

“Yes, sir.” They answered in chorus this time.

“Excellent because I was concerned. When I saw four of you beating a citizen of the Federation unconscious and the rest of you standing there doing nothing I thought that perhaps you didn’t know what your mission as Star Fleet officers was. I am reassured. Do you all know that Earth is a member of the Federation?” 

This time the chorus of affirmatives rang out immediately.

“Excellent. So you know what your mission is and you know that that young man is one of the people you have sworn an oath to protect. So WHAT WERE YOU DOING?”  
He yelled the last part into the face of the tallest cadet. Then he backed away and looked at them all. 

“What were you all doing in there? Is that what your sworn word means to you? Is that what the legacy of the thousands who have died in the service of the Federation means to you? Is that what the legacy of the Kelvin means to you, today on the memorial of that event, which I assume you were celebrating in there?” 

He gave them a moment to realize that his view of the bar fight was much wider than they’d appreciated. He doubted that one or two of the worst of them would be able to make the leap from a fistfight to defending the federation but he hoped that the rest of them would make the connection.

“Because that’s what I saw. You are wearing the uniform of my service, an organization that I have lost friends fighting to protect. You are wearing the uniform of a defender of the Federation in the middle of one of the founding planets of that Federation and you have attacked a citizen of that Federation.” He paused again and waited while their alcohol befuddled brains caught up with him. “If you were anything other than second year cadets you would be court martialed for your behavior today. As it is you four,” he indicated with his thumb the four cadets he’d seen beating on the civilian kid, “ you are on probation for six months. The rest of you are confined to the academy grounds for three months and on report.”

He waited a moment while the punishments sank in before resuming his slow pace down the line of ten cadets. “You hope to be officers in Star Fleet at some point, officers who will be responsible for the people under your command in some very difficult situations. You can’t even control yourselves in Riverside, Iowa. What are you going to do in a first contact mission amongst a native people with whom you share no language or mutual customs?”

He was pleased to see several shamed faces, but didn’t allow his own expression to relax. “I am disgusted with all of you. You are confined to the barracks at the base until our flight leaves in the morning.”

The cadets remained braced in front of him making no move aside from exchanging a few worried glances with each other. “Well move. I’m going inside to make sure you didn’t kill that kid and attempt to make amends for your behavior. I expect to be back at the base in half an hour. You had better all be there when I arrive.”

The last comment solicited nothing more than a few more covertly exchanged glances from the cadets. “Well?” he barked at them.

“Sir, we came in on the bus. This late they run on the hour. There won’t be another bus for forty minutes.” This came from the slender dark human cadet who’d been in the middle of the fight.

“Its two miles. You won’t have any trouble running back there in time, but I suggest you get started. The way I’m feeling about you all right now it would be no trouble to add to your punishments further for being AWOL from the base.”

A couple of the cadets groaned as they fell out and began to walk away.

“What was that? Did someone have something they needed to say about getting back to the base? It’s no trouble to me if you don’t show up there in time. I would have no problem if anyone one of you decided that you did not want a future in Star Fleet, because there isn’t a single one of you I would want serving on a ship with me.”

“Sir, No, Sir.” They cried out in a chorus as they broke into a shuffling run down the sidewalk.

Pike stood in neon lit parking lot, watching them running north toward the shipyard until they were out of sight. He smiled grimly to himself as he turned to walk into the bar. There would be more than one of those cadets throwing up on that run. His smile disappeared as he entered the building and saw the mass of broken tables and overturned chairs. 

He’d not lied when he’d said he would not want to serve with any of them. He could not abide officers who couldn’t control themselves and this was the worst sort of abuse. Four cadets, ostensibly trained to fight, beating a civilian senseless and then continuing to beat him once he was down. He would be following the behavior of those four very carefully the next few years of their training. 

Star Fleet walked a fine line between its military organization and its peacekeeping function and the officers who led that organization had to have the temperament to make the right decisions in some incredibly complex situations. It was the cadet who’d continue to beat the kid once the fight had ended and the three friends who’d been egging him on that Pike was truly concerned about. That was an instinct that might not respond to training. That was a group of men who might not be suitable for the careers they’d chosen.

He walked up to the bar keeper who was sorting broken glasses from unbroken, stacking the good glasses on the bar. He passed him his ID card.

“Scan that and send me an estimate when you have one. Star Fleet will take care of any expenses from this mess. Someone from the base will be by tomorrow to talk to you.” The man nodded and took the proffered card.

“Who’s the kid, is he local?” Pike asked as the man scanned the card.

“Yeah, that’s Jimmy Kirk, you know the Kelvin baby, George Kirk’s son. His family has a place outside of town.”

“Shit.” Pike said, excepting his card back. “Hell of a thing on Kelvin Day.”

“Yeah, hell of a thing.” The bar tender said not sounding too interested.

Pike ignored him after a quick glance over his shoulder and pulled out his Padd to do a search for James Kirk. He spent a minute reading the public data before doing a more thorough search of Star Fleet records. Hell of a thing, indeed.

He walked across the room and sat down opposite the kid at his table. The boy, young man, according to his record he was twenty, so a man, not a boy, look awful, but better than he was going to look tomorrow when all that bruising changed color.

“You okay there, son?”

“Yeah, just peachy.” The young man held up his glass without meeting Pike’s eye or turning around to the barkeeper. “Another one of these, please.”

“James Kirk, huh. I knew your father. Served with him on the Kelvin, as a matter of fact.”

“Well aren’t you lucky. Never met the man myself.” Kirk took a swallow from the glass the bar tender had placed on his table and gave the man a nod. “Put it on the Captain’s tab.”

When the bar tender looked at him for confirmation Pike nodded.

“Yeah, I was lucky. He was a good man, my friend. He did something important with his life, something to be proud of.”

Kirk looked up at him, his eyes slightly unfocused and blood shot. “Look, now that your cadets are gone and I’ve got a little peace here I intend to get on with my drinking. I don’t need a Kelvin memorial speech. Believe me I’ve heard plenty of those. So why don’t you go back to your Star Fleet and exchange speeches with the rest of the Kelvin survivors and leave me alone.”

“Kelvin survivor, that’s you too.”

Kirk looked back up from his drink, his eyes much more closely focused now on Pike. “Do you want something here, Captain? Your cadets did a good job on beating me up, you trying a little… what? Psychological warfare? Berate me while I’m down?”

Pike paused not quite sure what he was after himself. He remembered George Kirk though. How could he not when he had a near replica of him sitting not two feet away? Even if he hadn’t checked Jim Kirk’s record he would have recognized the resemblance even after twenty years, the same dirty blond hair and bright blue eyes. Most of all the same too perfect good looks even with the swelling and bruising Pike could tell that cleaned up the kid was a heart stopper.

“I’m trying to understand why someone with your brains and potential is getting beat up in a bar in the middle of no where Iowa?”

“You’d have to ask Cupcake and his friends about that wouldn’t you?” Kirk smirked at him before taking the last swallow of his drink and holding the glass up in the air. “Can I get another one of these?” He said in a louder voice not bothering to look toward the bar, his eyes on Pike, waiting for a reaction to the provocative smirk.

“Star Fleet could use someone like you. You could make a difference in the universe, be someone instead of the smartest, repeat offender in the mid-west.”

“Well, having seen what you’re working with in the recruit department I don’t doubt that but I don’t need Star Fleet. I’m fine just the way I am.” Kirk picked up the new drink and took a healthy, or unhealthy swallow from the glass.

“Captain of your own ship? Traveling to new galaxies, seeing new worlds? You can’t tell me that doesn’t have an appeal? There’s a shuttle leaving for the academy at 0800 tomorrow. I’ll hold a seat for you and if you can pass the entrance exam I’ll get you in this year’s class at the academy.” Pike waited for a response from Kirk. All he got was another smirk and the kid raised his glass to him.

“You must be way behind in your recruitment quota.”

“Your father saved 800 lives in his twelve minutes in command. I dare you to do better.”

“That’s all you got, a dare? I haven’t been in school since I was sixteen. Go away and save some other deserving soul.”

“I pulled up your records with your IQ scores and the on-line courses you’ve taken you should be able to pass the entrance exam. Don’t you feel like you were meant for something more?”

When Kirk made no reply Pike stood up and pushed his chair back under the table. “0800 tomorrow, be there.”

Kirk raised his glass in a mock salute and Pike nodded to him before turning and leaving the bar, George Kirk’s kid, who’d have thought it. 

He’d seen Wynona five-years ago at a stop over at Star Base 12. They’d shared a drink but she’d said nothing about her personal life and turned all of his inquires back at him. Jim would have been fifteen then and she’d been on the fourth year of a five-year mission. 

He glanced back over his shoulder at the kid as he opened the bar door. So Kirk had been on his own or with other relatives since he’d been what, eleven? He needed to take a look at Wynona’s record as well. Still, if the kid had half his father’s courage and with those IQ scores, he’d be a gift for Star Fleet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More slow build.
> 
> I don't have a beta so I apologize for any errors and ask you to please let me know if you see poor spelling or a misused word.

“Settle down people, we have a lot of material to cover here.” The woman on the stage surveyed the room for a moment before continuing to speak in a carrying voice. 

“Congratulations on having passed your initial psych and physical evaluations.”

McCoy looked up from his pad at the women, barely repressing a sigh. He’d been told ten times already that day that there was going to be a lot of material covered and thus far it had consisted of room assignments and meal tickets and instructions on where to run and how fast.

“If you open your padds to the section on the Star Fleet Entrance Exam we can begin.” She gave them a moment before moving to the illuminated screen at the front of the room. “You have already signed your enlistment papers for Star Fleet what the next week is going to determine is if you spend the first four years of that enlistment here at Star Fleet Academy or serving elsewhere in the fleet.” She spoke in a loud monotone obviously giving a speech she’d given many times before. 

“Tomorrow begins the first day of testing. You will have four days to complete the initial SFEE. That time will be divided into four-hour blocks, 0800 to 1200 hours, a one-hour break and then 1300 to 1700 hours. Once you enter your test module you will not be allowed to leave and re-enter during that testing period so take care of any biological needs you have during your off time. This is the last entrance exam for this semester so failure to pass is an automatic re-test in four months or deployment to Star Fleet basic training.” 

The woman, McCoy guessed she was some sort of Star Fleet officer as she had the requisite grey uniform, paced up and down in front of the screen making no effort to look at the thirty prospective Star Fleet cadets in the room as she spoke. McCoy gave the room a quick scan and saw primarily humanoids. As with most Star Fleet Academies, San Francisco attracted candidates from its local planet and its related colonies so the lack of diversity was no big shock. He caught the eye of his new roommate as he scanned the assembly and was unsurprised so see a slight smirk on Kirk’s face. The kid only seemed to have two expressions, smirk and smile. McCoy frowned. 

“There will be 2,000 questions, 1,500 of them knowledge questions and 500 aptitude. You must have 1100 correct knowledge questions to gain admission to the Academy. You must have 9000 correct answers to remain in Star Fleet. Your aptitude for your chosen branch of service will be determined by your responses to the aptitude questions.” She stopped pacing and changed the image on the screen to a map of the Academy grounds.

“Anyone failing to achieve the desired result may opt for six months at our prep center and a re-test. Three failures at the STEE and you are done. Any questions thus far?” She began pacing and speaking immediately not bothering to look to see if there were any questioners.

“Upon satisfactory completion of your entrance examination you will receive your final psych evaluations and be assigned your area of study.” She stopped pacing and walked up to the diagram on the screen.

“At 0800 tomorrow morning report to room 101C in the Teller building. Bring no electronic devices with you. That means no communicators, Padds or any other device. Do you understand?” This time she turned and surveyed the room. 

“Don’t panic when you get into the test. I know most of you have completed at least one possibly two years of post graduate test prep you should do fine. Remember you don’t need to finish all of the questions. You only need 1100 correct answers. Answer the questions you can. Skip the ones you’re not sure about and return to them at the end. No one finishes the test. Well, we’ve had one finish.” For the first time her face showed a little expression as a small smile appeared. “Six years ago a Vulcan completed the exam with 1897 correct answers. That will give you something to shoot for.” Now she was openly smiling at them.

“Welcome to Star Fleet and good luck. You are dismissed.” She turned and left the room by a side door.

“Jesus.” McCoy said. “Way to make you feel welcome. I knew this was a mistake.”

“Relax, Bones, it’ll be fun. A few general knowledge questions a few medical questions and you’ll have your red uniform.” Kirk gave him a slap on the back as they stood up.

“How stupid are you?” The Star Fleet “want to be” on the other side of Kirk loomed over them. The guy had to be at least six and half feet tall and was spouting a black eye that was a near match for Kirks. “Only 30% of the candidates pass it on the first try. Even with the Star Fleet prep program they only pass another 50%. Security candidates don’t get a free pass you know.” The man finished, giving Kirk’s bruised face an obvious perusal. “Your fists won’t get you through the exam. Good luck though.” He finished with a smirk that put Kirk’s usual facial expression to shame for its evident sense of superiority.

“It’ll be fine. They need someone to pass it or they’re all out of business. Don’t worry about us.”

The new speaker shook his head as he gathered up his padd and left the room a look of disgust on his face. “Worrying about idiots like you is the last thing I’m likely to be doing.”

“I guess I’m not taking this seriously enough.” Kirk said, the requisite smirk back on his face as he watched the big man leave. “Wow, way to ruin my buzz.”

“A friend of yours?” McCoy asked nodded toward the departing back.

“I don’t think so, maybe more of a secret admirer. I think he’s wanting to go a few more rounds, see if he can qualify for Security.” Kirk shadowboxed a couple of swings at McCoy. “He’s maybe heard of my fighting prowess.”

McCoy shook his head and grabbed Kirk by the upper arm. “Come on, Mohammad Ali, I need something to eat. I hate this place even more than I’d anticipated.”

Kirk laughed and allowed McCoy to man handle him from between the desks and toward the door. 

“So did you take two years of prep for the test.” He asked, pushing the door open for McCoy.

“No, nine years. Four years of medical school and three years of residency and two years of practice.” McCoy scowled at Kirk. “Add twenty-nine years of living and I’m good to go.”

Kirk nodded with exaggerated solemnity. “Wow you’re sure old. Do they give extra time for old people?”

“Shut up kid, us old people get grouchy when we haven’t eaten and I don’t want to hurt you.”

Kirk laughed, turning slowly on the exterior steps looking at the green space around them full of hurrying figures in red uniforms. 

“What are they all doing? Classes don’t start for another week?”

McCoy shrugged. “On their way to eat?”

Kirk clapped him on the back. “I hear you, food it is.”

&&&&

McCoy thought the woman had been pretty much on the mark as far as the test went. The questions covered the gamut from history and literature to hematology and exobiology. He was good at exams. Knew how to pace himself and keep his attention in the moment but after the fourth day he was beat. 

He stood in the alcove around which the doors from the test modules opened looking for Kirk. After a few minutes when the last of the small crowd of Star Fleet hopefuls had left the room he turned and followed them into the early spring sunshine. 

The tests were interesting. They asked interesting questions. He assumed those were the aptitude questions. Questions he hadn’t asked himself in years about his chosen profession and about how he viewed himself and humanity. He’d missed that sort of introspection in the endless fights with Jocelyn and anxiety about his life. It reminded him of medical school and long nights with fellow students talking about their futures and their rolls in the world as doctors.

He glanced around again for Kirk. He’d only known the kid for six days but he was surprised to find how much he liked him. McCoy didn’t make friends easily, a combination of his biting sarcasm and generally pessimistic view of the world he assumed. He wasn’t sure what Kirk found attractive about him beyond the fact that neither of them seemed to snore and they were neat and so made good roommates. 

There was optimism to Kirk that had McCoy giving the world a second look. He actually enjoyed the kid’s company and would be sorry if Kirk’s lackadaisical attitude toward the test ended up with him failing to pass. When he’d asked the kid where he’d done his undergraduate work, already suspicious since Kirk was obviously younger than most of the candidates all he’d gotten was a smirk and “the school of hard knocks.”

McCoy headed back to their dorm; enjoying the first really warm day they’d had since he got to San Francisco. He found his roommate on the front step of their temporary dormitory eating an apple, his head tipped back to catch the sun.

“How’d you get back here so fast?” McCoy asked sitting down next to him and accepting the apple Kirk handed him.

“They’re a little old, but still good.” Kirk said, waving the apple in his hand in McCoy’s direction.

“How’d you beat me back here?”

“I got done early, so I left.” Kirk said, wiping the back of his hand along his chin to catch the apple juice.

“Finished? What do you mean finished?”

“I got done.” Kirk said with exaggerated annunciation. “I finished the test.”

McCoy took a bite of his own apple, studying Kirk while he chewed. He knew the kid was smart. They’d spent hours stuck on the Star Fleet campus for the past six days, most of it talking about anything and everything. He also knew the kid was disrespectful and easily bored. He wasn’t sure if Kirk had gotten distracted and blown off the test or by some miracle finished it or answered as many questions as he felt like and left.

“What about the aptitude questions? They’re all mixed in with the knowledge stuff.”

“Its good. Jez, Bones, don’t worry. It’s all-good. I got this. Come on lets go to the gym, I’ve been too long inside I need to move.” Kirk somehow sprang up from where he was sitting with no obvious effort, popping the apple core into his mouth as he threw the stem into the shrubs beside the steps.

McCoy recognized a change of subject when he heard one and shrugged his shoulders as he followed Kirk inside to change. He didn’t really know the kid for all the time they’d spent together the last few days. He could just be blowing the entire Star Fleet thing off.

“You know if you don’t get into the Academy you still owe Star Fleet four years? Your could end up a yeoman on some supply ship running between star bases?”

“Relax, Bones, I got this. No problem.”

“No problem.” McCoy muttered to himself as he caught the closing door. 

&&&

“Jesus,” McCoy said with a touch of reverence, looking over Kirk’s shoulder at his padd. “How’d you do that?”

“What’d you get?” Kirk countered, nodding toward the padd in McCoy’s hand.

“1690 nowhere near your 1876. Jesus kid, you’re a genius.”

“Don’t start. I was taking command track, way easier than medical.” Kirk waved a dismissive hand. McCoy looked at him for a second and then decided to let it go. The command track examination was famously complex, measuring not just knowledge but reasoning at a greater depth than the other tests. There was no future in the discussion and McCoy dropped it.

“So, cadet, shall we repair to town for a last drink before we begin our careers as Star Fleet officers?” Kirk asked, a characteristic big smile on his face. “Last liberty until mid-terms.”

“God, I feel like I’m back in secondary school.” McCoy said, sadly. “I forget why I thought this was a good idea.”

“Ex-wife, planet.” Kirk reminded him, heading for the door. “I need a store too, now that it looks like I’m going to be staying for a while I need my own razor.”

“What do you mean your own razor? Whose razor have you been using?” McCoy cried as he chased after him. “Have you been using my razor? Have you got a toothbrush?” He asked remembering that the kid had gotten off the shuttle with no luggage. “Please tell me you’ve got a tooth brush of your own.”

“Relax, Bones, its all good.” Kirk said, laughing.

“So help, me kid, if you don’t tell me you have your own toothbrush I’m going to…” McCoy wasn’t sure what he would do and it didn’t matter. Kirk was already gone taking the stairs two at a time, laughing.


	3. Chapter 3

By tilting his desk chair back on two legs and placing his feet in his partially open drawer McCoy was able to rest his head against the wall behind him and arch his back. He sat thus for several moments, his eyes closed, thinking about nothing. He’d been studying for almost three hours and had at least another hour to go if he wanted to finish the chapter he was currently working his way through. 

He sighed as he allowed the chair to fall forward on to all for legs and combed his hands through his hair as he returned his gaze to the book spread on the desktop. He was not the least surprised that he was finding the manual slow going. He had no desire to fly in a shuttle and no desire to know how to operate one so little wonder he was having difficulty memorizing the operation of said death trap.

He got up and wandered over to the replicator in the wall next to the tiny counter and sink in the corner of their room.

“You want a cup of coffee or something?” He asked Kirk who was hunched over his own desk on the other side of the room. He’d been surprised when classes started to find that Kirk actually studied. Well studied might be going it a bit strong but he spent hours in their room every day reading and writing an occasional report. 

They were two months into their first seventeen-week semester and had settled into a routine of sorts. Most of their days were taken up with classes. Their schedules were complicated and in a constant state of flux. Each class would consist of several days or in some cases weeks of preparation and training, finishing with practical scenarios in which the information they had assimilated was tested in as realistic a fashion as possible.

Initially McCoy had dismissed the scenarios as so much stage acting but the equipment was real and when three second year students ended up in his emergency room after a fire control exercise gone wrong he was made painfully aware that the scenarios were quite real. Since all first year cadets had to pass a shuttle craft practical as co-pilots before moving on to their pilot training he was struggling to memorize the control panel of the Mach IV Intership Shuttle Craft. All of his initial training would be in flight simulators so he wasn’t too worried about his performance. He carefully didn’t think about next semester when he would be flying a real shuttle, or at least co-piloting one.

“Yeah, thanks.” Kirk got up and bent over his desk stretching. The chairs in their room were hard and uncomfortable. They both spent as much time studying on their beds as they did at their desks.

McCoy punched in two coffees, black and absently watched Kirk while he waited for the replicator to beep at him. The in room replicators could do half assed coffee and bad cereal. Anything more than that was pretty hopeless.

Kirk came over the replicator and took the cup out while McCoy held the door open for him.

“Thanks,” he said taking a two large swallow of the hot, bland liquid.

McCoy found his attention once more drawn to Kirk’s face. He had scaring all down the left side of his face with a particularly large scare on his chin. Facial scaring was very rare with regenerators able to cure almost any wound, leaving no scars. He couldn’t figure out how Kirk had managed to acquire so many so prominently displayed. There was a lot about Kirk he couldn’t figure out.

He liked the kid. There was a brightness to him, a joy that could light up a room or an unhappy doctor with a quick quip or a kind gesture. But there was something more, something that didn’t go with that brightness, that joy. 

Sometimes McCoy would catch a glance of Kirk when the other man was unguarded and there was a look… But everyone had ghosts and odd bits to them. If anyone knew that it was McCoy so he made friends with the brightness and the fun and ignored what might lie beneath, figuring Kirk had the same right to his dark side that McCoy did. 

They were roommates, friends of a sort but not the sort that shared deep secrets and past histories. McCoy had had all of the soul mates he could manage in his life and didn’t need another one. Jocelyn had cured him of ever wanting to know another person intimately again. Drinking buddies and room mates would suite him just fine, more that he didn’t care to ever know again.

Re-caffeinated McCoy wandered back over to his desk and stood behind his chair, staring down at the open manual reluctant to return to the memorization of something he didn’t want to know.

 

0000

McCoy gave the room a quick glance as he slipped through the partially opened door. He didn’t want to wake Kirk if he could avoid it. His roommate was a very light sleeper but McCoy knew he would be tired after a 48 hour survival trip to the north African desert and figured if he was quiet there was an excellent chance Kirk would sleep through his arrival.

They’d both had their first survival field exercise, lasting forty-eight hours. He’d found his to be tiring and boring but not a great strain. He’d heard horror stories though of upper classmen abusing first years and been glad to find that, as with much else at the Academy, the forewarning was worse than the experience.

He slipped off his shoes inside the door and nudged them out of the way under the wall coat hooks and hung up his coat by feel in the room’s near total darkness. He deposited his rucksack under the coat hooks pushing it back as far out of the way of the narrow entrance area as he could. All he wanted was a shower and sleep.

One good thing about both he and Kirk, they were neat and he could walk across the room to his bed confident he wouldn’t tangle himself in discarded shoes or dirty clothes. Perhaps that was why when he stubbed his toe on something and started falling forward he was so surprised.

“Shit,” he said, forgetting his resolve to let Kirk sleep as he all but landed on the other man’s bed. “Shit, what the hell?” He pushed away from the bed and half shouted, “Lights fifty percent.”

As the lights came up he grabbed his toe and looked over at Kirk with a sense of betrayal. He’d been trying to do the other man a favor and this is what he got.

But the bed was empty. He was sure he’d seen a Kirk sized lump when he opened the hall door. He turned and gave the room a confused perusal only to see his roommate hunched in the corner between his bed and the desk. 

Kirk looked more asleep than awake and terrified, his legs drawn up to his chest and his hands on the floor on either side pushing his scrunched up body against the wall. McCoy took a step forward only to have Kirk some how draw back even further. McCoy wasn’t even sure Kirk was fully awake as he got a better look at the other man.

Quickly stepping back McCoy sat down on Kirk’s bed and bent toward his foot. In a soft voice he said, “I stubbed my toe.”

There was no response from the other man.

“So bad 48 hours, huh?” McCoy straightened and pushed back a little further on the bed increasing the distance between them by a few inches and making his intent not to approach clear. “When did you get back?”

He waited for a few minutes and when Kirk made no reply and he stood and walked across the room to the bathroom. “I’m going to brush my teeth and get some sleep. Sorry I woke you.” He kept his tone light and matter of fact and made no further attempt to look at Kirk. 

He was pleased to hear a soft, “yeah,” as he closed the bathroom door.

Once the door closed and said, “lights 80%,” and leaned back against the closed door and let out a long breath. Shit. Either Kirk had had a really bad 48 hours on the survival course or there was something else seriously bothering his maybe, going to be a friend. Shit.

&&&

When McCoy woke the next morning his roommate was already gone. He’d apparently managed to side step the piles of gear now at the ends of both their beds. McCoy gave it a glance as he headed over to the replicator for his first cup of coffee of the day. Kirk’s uniform boots were still by the door so he must have gone for a run. 

McCoy sat down at his desk, allowing himself a sigh since Kirk wasn’t there to make some crack about old men and arthritis. They’d been dropped in the middle of the desert in groups of eight, two cadets from each year with the two fourth years ostensibly in charge. He’d been the medic in their group, which had ended up with him in charge of the limited water they’d been assigned. It was enough water to prevent serious dehydration but not enough to keep them comfortable, which apparently had been the intention of the exercise. Since he’d found very little comfortable about SFA this had been no surprise, although he thought a low. 

They’d then spent 48-hours wrapped in their emergency shrouds trekking across 40 kilometers of sand and wind to the extraction point. If the point of the exercise was to get them accustomed to being sandy, tired, hungry and dehydrated it had been a great success. 

McCoy opened the latest issue of Star Fleet Medical Journal on his PADD and half-heartedly began reading the article he’d marked on Levodian flu as a vector for early term abortions in Andorians. He was rereading the last paragraph for the third time when Kirk came through the door.

He’d been waiting for Kirk since he got up, but now that he was standing in front of him, sweaty and a bit bleary-eyed McCoy found himself with nothing to say. He wanted to know about the strange incident the previous night. What had frightened Kirk? But this smiling, exuberant adolescent wasn’t the person to ask. 

“Hey, Bonesy, how’s it hanging?”

“Okay, that’s it.” McCoy stood up, slamming his PADD down on the desk with too much force for its wellbeing. “I’ve been a really good sport about the whole nickname thing, but I have a limit and you’ve just passed it. No nicknames of nicknames.”

“Whoa, who peed in your cereal?”

“Really kid. You’ve got to ask? I just got back from 40 kilometers that would’ve worn out Lawrence of Arabia and you wonder why I’m not wanting to be called Bonesy?”

Kirk, love his youthful powers of recuperation, laughed. “Yeah, must be a tough walk for you older citizens.”

McCoy rubbed his hand down his face, wondering if there was anywhere this conversation could go that wouldn’t be worse than ending it now.

“You had breakfast?” He went for a straight to change of subject, to one he knew from experience would be welcome. The kid was a brilliant eater and after 48-hours of starvation he knew the snack they’d been given on the shuttle ride back would be long forgotten.

“Shower first.” Kirk said, toeing off his sneakers by the door.

“I can’t believe after all that walking you needed a run.” McCoy groused, feeling as if he should have been running as well.

“Had to think.” Kirk said, disappearing into the bathroom. Leaving McCoy wondering if Kirk was referring to the events of the previous night and if he should ask, something. Was Kirk all right?

Damn he hated these sorts of ambiguous, feelings sort of things in relationships. Jocelyn had said he had the emotional IQ of a turtle and he thought she might have been right about at least that one thing. Was this Kirk, saying he wanted to talk about last night? That he’d been thinking about it while he was running and needed to talk to McCoy about it? Or was McCoy’s even asking about what had happened an invasion of the kid privacy? 

God only knew. McCoy sure didn’t. And in the face of that ignorance he would do what he had always done and pretend nothing had happened. Had been a bad dream on Kirk’s part and none of McCoy’s business.

He decided he’d made the right call when Kirk emerged from the bathroom cleaned up and talking about some guy he’d met on his survival outing.

“So do you know him?”

“Huh? Know who?” McCoy hoped he wasn’t blushing. The first rule of guys was never look at the other guy and here he was spacing out, staring at Kirk. He hoped he managed to keep the collected look of someone who’d been wool gathering, not checking out the abs on his roommate.

“Bones pay attention no staring at the good looking cadet.” The smirk on Kirk’s face was almost convincing and McCoy added that momentary flash of something other than a smirk for later consideration. 

The longer he knew the Kirk the less he felt like he knew him. On the shuttle he’d been an amusing, good-looking kid. During the week of entrance exams and running around the campus he’d been good company and a youngster with enough of an upbeat attitude that he’d kept McCoy from doing something seriously self-destructive. The two months of classes had revealed a smart, optimistic friend with the patience of a gnat. The last 24-hours had begun to reveal some holes in the picture McCoy had drawn of Kirk. Maybe the kid was just catching a cold?

“I’m trying to tell you what happened on my survival scenario. It was really weird.” The last few words were muffled as Kirk pulled his red tunic over his head.

“Your supposed to put that on like a jacket and then zip it up.” McCoy said with a world-weary sigh.

“Faster this way.” Kirk was still trying to smooth his wet hair into some sort of order as he scooted past McCoy and opened their dorm door. “I’m not sure if this was a prank or if something…” Kirk stopped talking once they left their room. “I better save this for later.”

“Oh, no. You can’t give me a build up like that and then save it for later.” McCoy said, hurrying to catch up with Kirk who never walked if he could trot or run.

“Outside then.” Kirk shouted up the stairs already lost to sight on his way down the three flights to ground level. Sometimes McCoy felt more like Kirk’s father than his friend. Maybe the kid was hyperactive?

 

&&&

McCoy allowed the cereal to spill off his spoon back into the bowl. 

“This shit is getting seriously old. I could really go for a big plate of bacon and eggs.”

“Whoa,” Kirk said, between big mouthfuls of cereal. “Is this the man whose always telling me my diet is self-destructive?”

“Stop talking with your mouthful. Its disgusting.” McCoy groused and Kirk smirked and wiped the spilled milk off his chin. “And yes your diet is self-destructive. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy a big platter of my Momma’s bacon and eggs.”

McCoy returned the boring bowl of cereal, marveling again at Kirk’s ability to eat anything with relish. He tried to remember if he’d had that sort of appetite ten years ago. He didn’t think so, but of course he also hadn’t been hiking through the desert for two days on four ration bars and not enough water. He decided the cereal did taste pretty good and quickly finished the bowl.

“Look, I’ve got to run if I’m going to get to my tactics class on time. But I need to talk to you. Can you run a DNA test for me?” 

Kirk was out of his seat and grabbing his PADD as he spoke.

“What?”

“I need you to check the DNA on this. I need the profile.” Kirk handed him the paper bag he’d carried into the dinning area.

McCoy finished gathering up their bowls and spoons and empty coffee cups and placed them on the tray while he considered the request. It was easily enough done but the why was a puzzle.

“And if I do you’ll tell me why?”

“Yeah, promise.” Kirk forced the bag into McCoy’s hands. “Just keep it quiet. I’m not sure its anything and I’m not sure what it is if it is something but keep quiet about it.”

“And this won’t get me booted out of the Academy and assigned to some star base on the neutral zone?”

“Nah, nothing like that. Keep it quiet and I’ll explain everything tonight, I promise.”

McCoy nodded to Kirk’s back as he’d already left the table, apparently confident in McCoy’s agreement. Scowling at Kirk’s back, he shoved the bag into his carryall and headed over to dispose of the dishes. Maybe he was Kirk’s mother, not his father.


End file.
